Ingenico

Hi Ward

Zoals beloofd, wat uitleg.

Interview:                         Videocall via Teams. (Invite in previous mail)

Planning:                           Monday 14/03 at 13:00 Belgian time – length of interview: approximately 1 hour.

Attendees:

• Katrin Pepermans: lead designer DBA squad and your n+1
• Gilles Duchene à SQL DBA in the team focusing on the Cassandra cluster
• Stijn à internal Cassandra DBA specialist in a different team who helps Gilles
• David Carlier à lid van de DBA squad
• Carlos Da Silva à tribe leader and your n+2

Hereby a few more things to read:

• Worldline and Ingenico e-Payments merger:

• https://worldline.com/en/home/worldline-welcomes-ingenico.html

• https://www.ingenico.com/press-and-publications/press-releases/all/2020/10/worldline-welcomes-ingenico-creating-a-new-world-class-leader-in-payment-services.html

• Wordline Ingenico is a global leader with a very international team. The working environment is multicultural, young, dynamic and open-minded.

• The interview will be conducted in English.
• Take a look at the website of the Ingenico e-Payments as well: https://www.ingenico.com/

Information about the interview itself:

Structure:

• There will be a 20-minutes intro first by Carlos or Katrin. You will be shown a short powerpoint deck in which the role will be explained to you. They will also give you a short introduction in their structure, department, the environment and the projects.
• The roadmap for this year contains 10 to 15 projects. The Cassandra cluster is one of the strategic initiatives for this department.
• The next 40min will be dedicated to technical questions by Gilles and David (or Stijn if he is present).
• There will be questions about SQL server, performance, support to the dev team,…

• Here are some questions they used in a former interview (please bear in mind that this is subject to change).

• Please explain your experience with SQL?

• What were your main tasks as a SQL DBA? Which versions have you used already?
• Do you have experience with non-relational databases? Please elaborate on your use of it at CLIENT XXX.
• Did you ever perform a migration of databases?
• High availability setup: did you have experience with it already?

Business context & Corporate Structure:

The DBA team is in the R&D Department.  Within this department there are 5 tribes with several squads.

Carlos Da Silva is Section lead within this department. He is the Platform architecture Lead.

There are 3 teams within this section:

• Dba team with currently 3 SQL Database administrators
• Solution architects team
• Devops enablers team

They are looking for a SQL DBA because they are currently building a Cassandra cluster to process payments. Environment is windows and main language is .net. This project has already started but they need help as they do not have the needed expertise. They are currently learning as they go.  

Operating rhythm of the team:

• 1 day per week support
• 4 days per week project work
• Weekly on-call duty (rotating within the team)

A little overview of what they do:

Wrapping up the conversation

• Prepare some questions to ask (often the questions are already answered during the conversation itself)
• Repeat the questions to make sure that you understood everything correctly
• Give relevant use cases and concrete examples
• If positive: ask what they have in mind as a starting date.

General tips & tricks:

• Install yourself somewhere quiet with good connectivity
• When answering questions, try to refer to concrete projects and examples from your resume as much as possible.
• Always try to think out loud, so the interviewers can follow your thought process.
• Always try to tell your story in a positive way. Do not speak negatively about previous employers or experiences.
• Ask questions and show interest.

Good luck! I will call you around 2.30pm.

Maxime